


Gardens and Guys Next Door

by tielan



Series: Everybody Needs Good Neighbours [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, F/M, Girls Being Pervs, friends - Freeform, with friends like Natasha Romanoff who needs enemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 06:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5858608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria personally finds it awkward to be perving on the neighbour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gardens and Guys Next Door

**Author's Note:**

> “My best friend owns a restaurant and you wrote a bad review of it in the local paper so it has become my goal to track you down and fight you” AU from tumblr.

There are days when Maria wishes Guy Next Door wasn’t so damned good looking.

She personally finds it awkward to be perving on the neighbour, even if the other women on the block find all manner of reasons to be taking out the trash or cleaning up the yard when he’s mowing the lawn, shirtless, in a pair of grubby jeans that are, frankly, one molecule of denim away from indecency and a damned amazing floorshow. Frankly, with a physique like that, he’d do any strip club proud.

Maybe that’s his night job?

Given the ridiculous prettiness of him and his friends – Maria could well believe it.

“…you’re not listening to me.”

It’s a statement, not an accusation. Nat doesn’t do accusations – she does razor-sharp observations that make you feel like you have to explain yourself. It’s a clever trick, and one that Maria’s learned to resist.

“Guy next door is finally doing his yard.”

“I bet you wish he was finally doing you.”

The thing about Natasha is that she has no shame, either. It all comes right out with no filter to get in the way and soften what she says.

“If you lived next to him, I’d bet you’d wish he was doing you, too.”

There’s a thoughtful pause. “No, I wouldn’t. Because I’d turn up on his doorstep one night and tell him I had an alien virus in my system that could only be flushed out by a night of wild sex. And then I wouldn’t be wishing he’d fuck me because I’d be too busy fucking him.”

Maria nearly chokes. “You’ve been watching old-school Trek again, haven’t you?”

“What can I say? I have a thing for the ears.”

“And if neighbour guy said he was gay?”

“Ask if he and his boyfriend want to do a threesome? Hey,” Nat replies when Maria makes a disbelieving noise, “guys do it all the time to lesbians!”

“This was not the point of this call.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t zoned out on me while perving at The Cute Neighbour Guy.”

Maria sighs. “Okay, so tell me more about this review. Who do I have to hunt down and kill?”

“He runs the blog _Meets and Eats_ and I’d hunt him down and kill him myself, but I think it would generate the wrong kind of publicity. I mean, worse than already.”

“Oh, you think?”

“Yes, I _do_ think. And my people didn’t pick him up – Yelena swears up and down and back and forth that she didn’t see him anywhere, so he must have come in disguise. Which is _cheating_.”

Maria sighs. “I don’t know why you think that my hunting down and killing him would be any better.”

“Because it wouldn’t be me doing it?” Nat says hopefully. “Look, all I want is for you to hunt him down and put the fear of Romanoff in him. Or, you know, at least work out where he lives so I can egg his mailbox come Halloween. Puh-lease?”

Maria sighs and starts a google search on _Meets And Eats_. “Do you have a name or anything to go on?”

“His username is CapA and his name is, apparently, Steve Rogers.”

The page loads up, and Maria blinks at the blogger photo above the little cluster of followers. Blinks. And then rolls the chair over to the window to peer out at Guy Next Door, who’s carrying the grasscatcher over to his composting heap, which happens to mean he’s walking towards her...

Shit.

“What?” Another annoying thing about Natasha: she has a sixth sense for when something’s happened. Either that, or an overextended sense of paranoia. “What is it?”

“You won’t have to hunt him down,” Maria tells her as Guy Next Door fills his compost bin with grass clippings, and her vision with beautifully sculpted arms and shoulders. “He lives next door.”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line before Nat says, “Seriously?”

“Deadly.”

Nat’s shriek of laughter makes her hold the phone away from her ear for a moment. Most of the time, Nat is SRS BSNS. Maria has learned to fear the times when her friend gets playful, because it’s goddamn _dangerous_. “Okay, okay, I take it all back. You don’t have to kill him, you just have to go next door and fuck him blind, take a picture of him limp as three-week celery afterwards, and send it to me, and then my honour will be satisfied.”

“You mean your prurience will be satisfied.”

“That, too.”

Maria rolls her eyes. “So, I’ll just turn up on his doorstep naked, tonight, then, shall I?”

“Not naked. Black lace.”

“Black lace?”

“You look good in black lace.”

“Oh, and how would you know?”

“ _Please_. I have eyes and a working imagination. And I bet that Guy Next Door would agree—”

Glancing back down, Maria locks gazes with Guy Next Door, who’s paused with the grasscatcher resting on the edge of the compost bin and is looking up at— _Shit_. Maria rolls back over to the desk, her cheeks hot.

“Look, you asked me to find Mr Mean Reviewer, and I’ve found him. Mission completed. And, oh, look at the time, I have to go.”

“Oh, no. No. Definitely not. You’re not getting out of—”

“Happy to help you find your Mean Reviewer, Nat, lovely to talk. I’m hanging up now.”

“—a _detailed_ report on—”

“Good-bye, Nat.” Maria terminates the call. There’s no point in waiting for Natasha to end the conversation, not when she has something as juicy as this to speculate on.

Her phone rings again before she can put it down. She lets it ring out. And lets it ring out again as she skims the dismissive review, frowning slightly. Mister Fury yowls at her from the floor, so she rolls her chair gently back so he can jump up on her lap. A ding heralds the first of what's probably going to be a stream of text messages, and she ignores them as she studies the blogpost. There’s something about it—

The phone rings again. And again.

The first text message says, _I cn do this allllllll daaaaaaay..._

Maria texts back, s _hut up, i’m abt 2 fuck GND._

_ur pants r on fire_

_I don’t think GND did ur revw unless he sdnly develpd brain fritz and chgd his writing style._

_wtf?_

Maria is just typing a reply when there’s a knock downstairs. Dislodging Mister Fury, who gives her a reproachful look and vigorously begins cleaning himself, she peers through the spyhole and blinks at the sight of Guy Next Door standing on her front porch, still in his grubby jeans, and quite, quite naked to the waist.

 _Remember to breathe,_ she tells herself, and opens the door. “Yes?”

Without the skewed perspective of the spyhole, he looks bigger and considerably more lickable. Also, either sunburned or slightly embarrassed. Considering his opening words are,“Uh, hi. I’m Steve, from next door. Mailbox licking guy, remember?” Maria is going for ‘embarrassed’.

She doesn’t smile, because if she smiles, she has the awful feeling she’ll simper like a bimbo. So she looks him in the eye and tells her complexion to behave.

It does _not_ help that a Nat-like voice in her head is shrieking, _Drag him inside and fuck him blind!_

“Yes,” she says. “I remember.”

“Uh.” He seems to flounder for a moment. “Look, I was just doing my lawn – been out of state for a couple of weeks with a friend – and I’m about to do some trimming on the crabapple, but I, uh, just wondered if you wanted me to trim your side as well.”

“You want to trim the crabapple?”

“Yeah.” He starts down the steps, beckoning her with one gloved hand, “Look, I’ll show you...”

“Yes, I know. It grows over the dividing fence...” Maria goes to the edge of the porch and leans out to see the tree. She doesn’t know very much about trees – it hangs over the fence and it’s not doing any harm so…? “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes, you can trim the crabapple on this side.”

“Oh. Good. Thanks.” In spite of asking her for permission, he seems kind of lost now that he has it. “You know, you haven’t actually told me your name.”

She blinks, rewinds the conversation. “Oh. I’m Maria. Maria Hill.”

He grins, and Maria locks her knees in case they consider buckling to be an option right now. Particularly as he moves to stand next to the porch she’s leaning over, pulls off his gardening glove and holds up a hand for her to shake. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Maria.”

Maria finds herself staring down into intense blue eyes framed with long gold lashes and wonders if this is what it feels like to get hit by a train.

 _I’d hit him like a freight train,_ Nat-in-her-head notes. _Like, RIGHT NOW_.

Maria stuffs Nat-in-her-head into one of her grampa’s old film containers and shakes Guy Next Door’s hand, fighting back a shiver at the callouses. “Yes.” God, could she sound any more inane? “Steve Rogers, right?”

“Yes.” He blinks, then relaxes. “Oh, you’ve seen my mail.”

“I’ve seen your blog. _Meets & Eats_?”

“Oh, yeah. I haven’t reviewed anything in months.” He rakes his ungloved hand through his hair. “After Christmas, I just needed a break and haven’t gotten around to going back.”

“Uhuh.” Maria considers telling him his site has been hijacked, but decides against it. He’ll find out soon enough, she supposes. “Right, well, thanks for asking permission.”

“It’s always good to ask permission first.”

Maria blinks, because she could have _sworn_...

But he’s heading off back down her path, and  _damn_ those jeans fit him well. Maria watches right up until he hits the gate and the scarlet-blooming climbing rose growing over it, then makes sure she closes her door so she doesn’t get caught perving.

Because he may have asked permission to trim her crabapple –  _You make it sound so innocent,_ Nat-in-her head sniggers – but it’s still all kinds of awkward.


End file.
